Lift Your Spirit

About

How long have you been doing what you do, and how did you become a powerful Healing Facilitator, Wellbeing Specialist and Women’s Empowerment Coach?

To answer this question, it’s probably best that I share with you a defining moment, and resulting “compelling story”, that brought me to where I am today – Coaching women just like you; facilitating deep inner healing by giving women the tools, support and love they need to heal themselves, heal their world and step into their true power.

That defining moment in my life happened in 2006. I had been a High School Teacher for 30 years and had become the Head of Sixth Form at an inner city school. I loved my work, loved my students and delighted in seeing them shine. Unfortunately I was a people person in a changing environment; one that had become a paper and target driven organisation. I had students from all over the world, with a multitude of issues that I always put before writing a management report or jumping through new and ever increasing, organisational hoops. As if they had nothing better to do than think up new schemes! I worked ridiculous hours and told the Leaders of the organisation that even Wonder Woman could not do this job. The inevitable happened. I crashed and burned, had a heart attack and a nervous breakdown. Even that did not stop the school from telephoning me at home. They had very soon discovered that the job could not be done; even with the four people they had got to try and do the job they had insisted that I do single handily….Hello!!! My husband took the phone from me one day and told the person on the other end of the phone to “leave her alone, she’s had a heart attack and a breakdown for Christ’s sake!” I cried a lot as I felt used, abused and cheated out of a job I loved and one that I was bloody good at, simply because no one listened. With hind-sight, I should have stood up for myself but all my life I had been told to put up and shut up; that I was not good enough and must try harder etc. Failing my 11plus exam (an assessment taken by 10 year olds in UK at the time, to determine if you were “good enough” to go to a Grammar School) did much damage to my already fragile self worth and self esteem… I digress, but I know that many women have suffered a life time, if not life times of put downs, not being good enough and the damaging effects that has.

I ended up with clinical depression and was put on antidepressant medication – which I didn’t take because I didn’t like the idea of putting drugs into my body that were a chemical cosh. I eventually took myself in hand, after walking the streets of Leeds contemplating suicide. I probably would have jumped in front of a bus had it not happened to be my middle son’s birthday. I guess the universe had a plan for me even though I did not realise it at the time. I walked and walked and began to realise perhaps I was lucky. I did not feel lucky at that particular moment but I accepted that I had family and friends who loved me and if it happened to me it could happen to anyone. I felt sorry for other poor souls who had to deal with similar shit and maybe go home to an empty home and a cat, if they are lucky! This girl was not going to lie down and take it. I would find a ladder to get myself out of this deep dark hole!

Let me back up a bit. You see, years earlier, the seed of Reiki Energy Healing had been planted in my mind when close friend was terminally ill with cancer. I would go see her every single day on my way home from work. We’d chat, have coffee and hug. She struggled on but finally relented and went into a Hospice for her last 2 days. While in the Hospice, she asked me to rub her back. Despite hugging her every day, I hadn’t realised just how skeletal she had become. In rubbing her back, I accidentally hurt her. I went home heartbroken. I just knew that would be the last time I saw her and she died that night.

I felt deep inside that there must have been something better that I could have done for her. Had I been able to use Reiki at that time, it would have helped so much. However I didn’t know what Reiki was back then but the Universe was sending me messages. If you don’t pay attention, the Universe will whack you on the head! It did and I eventually listened. I always had been a bit slow on the uptake but I got there eventually!

In order to heal myself from my clinical depression, I looked into complementary therapy. I trained in Reiki and Indian head massage and became a Reiki Master Teacher in 2010. I then mastered and further developed my skills in Reiki while working as a volunteer therapist at the very same Hospice. This really opened me up to my own spirituality and spiritual development. Reiki was the gateway to finding my own magnificence and becoming a powerful healer of everything from me to glasses of wine! Since then, I’ve added other healing modalities to my healer facilitator’s tool box such as Meditation, Mindfulness, Relaxation, Stress Management, Inner Child, Past Life and Ancestral Healing, Hypnotherapy, Crystal Healing and Labyrinth Healing. I became a Reiki addict as it all goes back to, and flows from, Reiki. I make no apology for being quite evangelical. I want everyone to experience Reiki. The world needs as many “Reiki Warriors” as it can get right now!

For the last 25 years, my husband and I have been renovating a 12th century monastery in France. The story of how we came to buy this, I will save for another time. For now I will just say that we wanted somewhere to park a caravan and ended up with a ruined monastery, in two and half acres of rural France. We later discovered it was built on an ancient site in 1157 by the uncle of Eleanor of Aquitaine. Eleanor was given refuge at The Monastery when she fled from her castle in Poitiers in an attempt to escape from her husband Henry II. Her son, Richard the Lionheart later stopped off here when going clippity clop along the Roman road off to the crusaders. The healing energy came to the fore when it became a hospital of The Knights Templar and this healing energy has been rekindled and increasing in power with all the healing work being done there now. The pictures of orbs taken here are awesome. Mary Magdalene, Mother Mary and several Archangels have been identified by Diana Cooper. Several years later, when we bought the chapel from the farmer next door, we discovered it had been deconsecrated the year I was born…fucking wow or what! It has stood here for hundreds of years and I am bringing it back into spiritual use (not religious use) at such a pivotal time; the dawn of the New Age and the coming of the Divine Feminine. None of this could have been possible without the Divine Masculine in the form of my husband who just happens to be a builder! Well nothing just happens does it?

For a number of years we have opened up this special place for women-only retreats where I provide the space and love for them to heal whatever needs to be healed. This is made possible by removing them from their everyday pressures; so that they can have quality time with themselves. Really get to know themselves, dig deep and heal. I hold their hands every step of the way. We laugh, cry, cry laughing and heal each other. It is humbling to be able to do this and a joy to see what emerges. It is sad that the people who really need this are the ones who habitually never take care of themselves and put their needs last. The very people who will benefit the most from coming to stay with me for a while are the very people who are afraid to be “selfish” and look after themselves. You can’t pour from an empty cup. I’m on a mission to wake these women up to make sure they “put their oxygen mask on first” and find themselves. The world needs them, they need them and the time is now.

If we have learned anything from this past year it is that tomorrow is not guaranteed. Who would have thought we would lose David Bowie, Prince, George Michael and my favourite Greg Lake..to name but a few. There is so much more to life. You know this. These artists may have died young but they did not die with their songs still inside them. I don’t want women to die without finding their passion, their story, their song, their true identity that is hidden away because they are brought up to believe that they must be silent, be good, not rock the boat, put everyone else first etc etc. You know what they are. What will be your legacy? What will you leave behind? What will you be remembered for? My beloved grandfather died quite young but one thing I remember him saying to me is “Helen, there are no pockets in a shroud”. You can’t take anything with you so you’d better get the most out of this life while you can. I waited far too long to heed these words and it is only now that I am a grandmother myself that I am doing things that my granddaughters will remember me by. I don’t want them to be held back by the same limiting beliefs and baggage I carried for all these bloody years! I looked at my mother narcissistic mother and my grandmother and saw a pattern. I did not want to go the same way and I knew that this went back many generations and that I came here to break that chain. If you want to fly you have to drop the baggage. I’ve got my wings and I would be delighted to help you to get yours.

I cleaned up my past(s), started teaching Reiki and helping women learn how they can do the same: I watched them become healers in their own right. Saw them step out as Reiki Warriors, shining their lights like beacons guiding others home and doing their bit to raise the vibration. I have since made a commitment to dedicate the rest of my professional life to helping other women find that hidden gem that’s been covered over from many lifetimes of shit, to get comfortable putting themselves first, and become the person that they truly are. The one they came to this life to be.

Since then, I’ve worked with many private clients, spoken in front of countless groups: I lived my dream of seeing my beloved monastery renovations completed and am attracting a stream of women who come for a visit and take that beautiful energy away with them to change their world and the world. I have created The Lift Your Spirit, Heal Your World™ system of healing, and well-being practices that every woman needs to apply to be the person she came here to be.